Archive of Our Own ^beta

1

Briar watched as Daja signed for her regular delivery of coal and waved the cart on through to the yard beside the smithy on Cheeseman street.

The carter looked over at the smithy door and grinned. "I see you have company today."

Daja glanced over at Briar, who was leaning casually against the doorframe, his hands in his pockets. "Yes," she said, "my brother decided to hang around and help."

Briar, who had woken up with a mind full of bells and burning rosebushes and needed the forge's reminder that fire could be safe, could be useful, could be wanted, grinned back, a quick baring of teeth to hide a bruised heart.

The carter asked, "Another smith-mage?"

"He's better with coal than with metal," Daja replied.

Briar spluttered down their link. I'm a plant-mage!

And you, Daja responded, laughing back at him while keeping her face bland, are the one who reminded me that coal is made of ancient plants. Out loud, she told him, "If you're going to help, come and start hauling sacks."

Briar shrugged, and straightened, and came to help haul. It was no worse hauling sacks of coal to the coal shed than it was sacks of soil and fertiliser for the garden and the greenhouse. In some ways it was better. He could feel the coal through the sack, singing to his magic with the smugness of plants that have managed to turn themselves into something else.

These, after their transformation, were plants that liked to burn, and that, in its way, was as comforting as the forge itself.

2

Daja leaned back against the greenhouse wall and watched Briar at work on a batch of aloe ointment. Having woken up with her head full of mis-used brass gloves, she needed the metal frame's reminder that her work could be used for good as well as bad. She wasn't trying to hide from Briar, he knew she was there, but seemed content to let her watch his back. Then again, he knew what it was like to wake up with a head full of bad memories.

Hey, sis, he dropped lightly down their link, nudging her out of her thoughts. Think you can lower yourself and your big smithing muscles to haul a new sack of fertiliser over here? This one's almost empty.

Lower, my ass, Daja retorted, but she climbed to her feet anyway and went to find the unopened sacks of fertiliser.

Hate to tell you, Briar snarked back, his mind full of teasing and no hate at all, but you're raising that ass. Lowering it would be sitting back on the floor... He ducked as she set the sack beside him and reached to scruff a hand through his hair, and they both grinned at each other, bad memories pushed aside for now.

3

"Are you taking anyone to this Winter Ball Sandry's throwing?" Briar asked, as he scrubbed their breakfast dishes. With Tris off at Lightsbridge, and Sandry with the Duke, there were only the two of them to do the chores. He decided that this one was clean and set on the drying rack, reaching for the next one.

Daja gave the dish a few minutes to drain, then picked it up and began to dry it. "No," she said. "Are you?"

"I haven't asked." Briar pulled a face at the dish in his hands. "It smacks a bit much of commitment, and I ain't wanting any of my bedmates to get the idea that I'm down for more than a bit of flirting and a tumble in bed."

"Fair." Daja stacked the dish with the others, to be put away when they were all clean and dry. "As many as you have, they might start squabbling over it."

Briar looked up then, a wry grin on his face. "A thought though - we could go together. As mates, not anything else."

"Oh, I wouldn't want to hinder your flirting."

Briar's grin grew wider. "Nah, we can split them between us easy enough. You can flirt with all the ladies, and I'll flirt with all the men."

"You forget," Daja said mildly, as Briar set the last dish within her reach, "both Sandry and Niko will be there. I don't think flirting with all the ladies there is on the cards for me. Do you really want to flirt with Niko?"

The face Briar pulled was answer enough.

4

Daj? A hand please?

Briar's call caught Daja just as she was finishing up a batch of nails. How urgently?

Finish your nails, I'm not going anywhere. He sent her an image of his newest shakkan determinedly tying him in place, away from the wire he needed to shape it on the other side of the room.

Daja sent him back her wordless amusement. She finished the nails, banked the forge, rinsed the worst of the soot and sweat off, and went to help.

She found him in his workroom, still arguing with the tree, and brought the wire over. Then she laid a hand on his shoulder, offering him the wire of her magic to shape the tree magically as well as physically. Briar showed her how to coil and wind the wire to get the shape that the tree needed to be, and she followed his lead, reading the echo in his magic as the shakkan slowly, sullenly, subsided, complaining all the way.

5

Once a month, Lark and Rosethorn come down to the Summersea market to staff the Winding Circle stall. Daja and Briar often meet them there, as does Sandry when she can get away from her other duties, and Tris when she's home. It isn't exactly a time to catch up - Lark and Rosethorn have a standing invite to supper on market evenings for that - but it does allow them to see each other.

Daja was a little surprised, therefore, when a note arrived from her teachers the day before market day. She tipped the messenger, and unfolded the note.

It said: Frostpine says you have a mirror that shows what someone's ambient magic connects to? We have a new student at Discipline who nobody can work out, other than it probably being something earth-based. If you could bring it to market day we would like to either borrow it or at least try it. ~Lark

Daja raised her eyebrows and went to dig the mirror out of the bottom of her mage kit. She hadn't used it since Nia and Jory, but when she fed it a little of her magic, it still worked.

Briar sent her a wordless query through their bond.

New Discipline kid, she told him. Something earth based, no-one knows what. Lark thinks I might have something that would help.

A sense of intrigued curiousity was his only response.

"This is Lil," Lark said, ushering the kid towards Daja.

Lil was thin and sullen, her eyes fixed on the ground, hands tucked into tightly folded arms where they couldn't touch anything.

Daja and Briar thought simultaneously, Tris.

Tris took a look through their eyes, huffed at them, and told them, I have three essays to complete. Just treat her like a person instead of a problem. Then she was gone again.

"Nice to meet you, Lil. I'm Daja." She pulled the mirror out of her bag and showed it to Lark. "It needs my magic to activate, but you can try it out, if it helps."

"Thank you, Daja." Lark led them over to a bench, out of the main rush of the market, leaving the stall in Rosethorn's care for a moment.

"All you need to do," Daja explained, "is hold it in your hands and look into it."

"I'll break it," Lil muttered. "I break everything."

"You make holes in the ground," Lark corrected, gently but firmly, "and broke plates."

Daja shrugged. "If it breaks, I'll make another one."

Briar added, "Daj is good at making things." He glanced at her. "Can I try it out? I'm curious."

Daja smiled and handed it over, running a little magic into it.

In the mirror, Briar sat in the middle of a garden, surrounded by plants of all kinds. He let them all, Lil included, look over his shoulder, then passed the mirror to the kid. "Your turn, kid," he said cheerfully.

"Bag," Lil muttered back, and took the mirror hesitantly.

In the mirror, she sat at a workbench, surrounded by slabs of clay, and the tools to use it - a potter's wheel, sculpting tools, moulds for bricks, mixing troughs for mortar and cement, and in the background, a kiln.

Daja grinned.

Briar whistled. "A clay mage. Nice!"

Lil shoved the mirror back at Daja, tears running down her cheeks, and buried her face in her hands.

Lark put an arm round her and waved Daja and Briar away. "Good work, the pair of you. We can take it from here."

+1

Although Rosethorn and Lark had their standing invitation to have supper at Cheeseman Street on market days, they didn't always take it up.

On the occasions where they do, on the days when they aren't too tired or too busy or have to be elsewhere, word goes around the four as fast as thought can fly.

This time, everything is kicked off early by Lark and Rosethorn dropping off a basket containing tomatoes from Rosethorn's garden, pastries from Gorse, and word that they will be back for supper, on their way to the market. It's a week after Midsummer, so the Dedicates are just about recovered from services and celebrations, and Tris is home for the summer.

Sandry makes a point of coming over for the meal. It isn't anything grand, but between the salad that Briar threw together from his garden produce, the cheese that Daja brought back from the market, the basket of fruit that Sandry brought with her, Lark and Rosethorn's offerings, and Tris's freshly baked bread, there was plenty for everyone, even after Frostpine and Niko turned up on the doorstep too. Frostpine produced a couple of jars of pickled vegetables to add to the spread, clearly bought from one of the market vendors.

Better than him trying to cook, Daja commented as she took the jars.

Lil watched, wide eyed beside Lark, as Tris, Daja, Briar, and Sandry worked together, ferrying plates, bowls, cups, and cutlery to the table without having to say a word out loud.

Finally, Daja pulled two pitchers of chilled water out of the coolbox, one flavoured with mint leaves and the other with lemon, set them on the table, and called everyone to the meal.

It was a bit crowded, but it felt good to have everyone there.

Briar drizzled oil and vinegar on his bread and quietly made sure that Lil always had food within reach. Daja helped herself to her favourite pickled onions. They weren't quite the same as the ones that Traders made, but they were the closest she was likely to get when she wasn't actually eating with other Traders. Chime poked her snout hopefully into every bowl, until Tris lured her away with a bit of fancy powder. Sandry chattered easily and endlessly, discussing clay loomweights with Lil, plant dyes with Rosethorn, and fashions with Niko and Lark.

Daja bit down on an onion and a smile, and turned to talk shop with Frostpine. The setting might be different from Discipline, but the people - brother, sisters, saati, teachers - made it feel like home, and always would.